In the processing of birds through a poultry processing plant for defeathering, evisceration, cut-up and for packaging and delivery to the retail grocery store, etc., it is highly desirable to perform as many as is practicable of the processing steps with automated machinery and with a minimum of manual labor so as to minimize the expense of the process and to uniformly cut apart the birds.
In recent years, the birds have been carried along a processing line suspended by their legs from an overhead conveying system with as many of the processing steps as practical being performed on the birds as they move in series on the overhead conveying system. For example, the birds can be defeathered, decapitated, opened, and eviscerated as the birds are advanced progressively along a poultry processing line. It is further desired that the birds be segmented while continuing their travel on the overhead conveying system, thus reducing the number of times the birds must be handled manually. However, it is still a common practice to remove the poultry carcasses from the overhead conveying system in order to cut the birds into sections.
Recently, some equipment has been developed to form preliminary cuts in poultry carcasses while the carcasses remain suspended by their legs from an overhead conveyor system. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,547,429 discloses a method and apparatus of halving poultry carcasses whereby the birds remain suspended by their legs while moving along an overhead conveyor system as the birds are cut between the breast or upper carcass portion and the saddle or lower carcass portion of the bird. However, the breast portion of the bird is then generally permitted to fall uncontrolled into a receptacle or onto a conveyor for further manual handling.
It can therefore be seen that it is desirable to provide a method and apparatus which performs the functions of separating previously eviscerated poultry carcasses as the carcasses are moved in series along an overhead conveyor system, and as the carcasses are separated, the pieces thereby removed from the overhead conveyor system are received by and automatically processed by the equipment so as to avoid further manual handling of the carcass parts.